Comment is free + Glasgow | The Guardianhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/commentisfree+travel/glasgow
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When Glasgow's undead rise up | Kevin McKennahttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/21/brad-pitt-filming-glasgow-zombies
If Brad Pitt's running short of ideas for his zombie movie, perhaps I could be of assistance<p>A transfiguration occurred in Glasgow last week when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie adopted human form and came among us. Brad is in town to make a movie about a war between zombies and humans and Glasgow was chosen because the architecture of its city centre seems closely to resemble that of downtown Philadelphia.</p><p>We have been told this before when others of Tinseltown's nomenclature have fleetingly visited. On this occasion, though, almost the entire area around George Square, the heart of Glasgow, has been blocked off and will remain so for a while yet.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/21/brad-pitt-filming-glasgow-zombies">Continue reading...</a>Brad PittAngelina JolieFilmGlasgowScotlandSat, 20 Aug 2011 23:07:06 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/21/brad-pitt-filming-glasgow-zombiesKevin McKenna2011-08-20T23:07:06ZPaddle steaming on the Clyde is a summer ritual that deserves preserving | Ian Jackhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/29/ian-jack-paddle-steamers-clyde
As a cult, the Clyde steamer is at least as old&nbsp;as Britain's better-known devotion to steam locomotives<p>If there were to be a contest for the best British summer in living memory, I would vote for 1955. Meteorologically, that might be debated. Other summers since may well have been hotter and sunnier across the United Kingdom as a whole. But that summer in Scotland was glorious. Day after day the sky dawned blue, even in Port Glasgow, which is notorious for its rain, and where for a week that year I spent the first of my holidays with my uncle, aunt and cousins. One day we took a ferry and a double-decker bus to a beach near Dunoon. There, late in the afternoon, I looked up from the rocks to see a&nbsp;two-funnelled steamship come round the headland, gliding towards us like a small liner. &quot;That'll be the wee Queen Mary,&quot; my uncle said, &quot;going home to Glasgow from the Kyles of Bute.&quot;</p><p>To describe the effect as an epiphany would be going too far, but the sight of this pleasure steamer planted an interest in me (reinforced the same evening by sailing home on a ship where the crowds on deck sang to an accordion band) that grew into an enthusiasm, and in adolescence almost to an obsession, before falling back into a deep fondness that still persists. In 1955, pleasure fleets still sailed across the Bristol Channel, along the south coast and down the Thames, but neither in number nor style did any of them equal the fleet on the Clyde, where the geography demanded sea travel both in winter and summer, and which launched Europe's first sea-going steamship in 1812. As a cult, the Clyde steamer is at least as old (and was once just as fierce) as Britain's better-known devotion to steam locomotives.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/29/ian-jack-paddle-steamers-clyde">Continue reading...</a>ScotlandBoating holidaysGlasgowScotlandFri, 29 Jul 2011 19:30:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/29/ian-jack-paddle-steamers-clydeJeff J Mitchell/REUTERSThe Waverley still sails the river Clyde … but for how much longer? Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/REUTERSJeff J Mitchell/REUTERSThe Waverley still sails the river Clyde … but for how much longer? Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/REUTERSIan Jack2011-07-29T19:30:00ZGlasgow needn't entice the rich. It's fine just as it is | Kevin McKennahttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/11/glasgow-luxury-destination
A campaign is afoot to promote Glasgow as a destination for well-heeled tourists, an idea perhaps informed by industrial-scale optimism<p>Edinburgh in August can leave unreconstructed Glaswegians such as me feeling lonely and bewildered. The streets are awash with the middle-class operati of Scandinavia, Germany and the English shires trying to convince each other that Auld Reekie really is the place to be.</p><p>Attempting to buy a drink in an honest pub can be hazardous. If you haven't been importuned by the Young Bratislava Shakespeare Team, it's very likely that a pair of Marcel Marceaus will leap from the shadows, their hands describing an imaginary television set. You respond with a charade of your own involving one digit and a vertical motion. You reach the tavern with your nerves in ribbons and hating yourself for your spiteful riposte. Yet your ordeal has only just begun. Edinburgh people, whose behaviour in public houses is normally characterised by sobriety, rectitude and caution, offer to buy you drink. Unprompted. They speak in a different language: &quot;Have you seen Ibsen at the Playhouse? Soooo edgy. And Scottish Opera's <em>Das Rheingold</em> is so… so thrilling! You can even see Freia's foundation garments.&quot;</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/11/glasgow-luxury-destination">Continue reading...</a>TravelGlasgowEdinburghCultural tripsScotlandSat, 10 Apr 2010 23:06:21 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/11/glasgow-luxury-destinationKevin McKenna2010-04-10T23:06:21ZOpen thread: The Question Time team aren't, but would you be willing to up sticks and move to Glasgow for your job?http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/oct/16/glasgow-bbc-question-time-dimbleby
David Dimbleby isn't happy at the prospect. But would you be willing to up sticks and move to Glasgow for your job?<p>This week, it made its way into Lonely Planet's list of the world's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/oct/15/glasgow-scotland">top 10 cities</a> – the only place in Britain to do so – but David Dimbleby isn't impressed. The presenter of Question Time is understood to have expressed &quot;<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3204909/BBC-faces-revolt-over-plans-to-move-programmes-including-Question-Time.html">dismay</a>&quot; at the BBC's plans to move production of the television show to Glasgow.</p><p>Jana Bennett, the BBC's director of television, has announced that from 2010 there will be a significant increase in the number of programmes made in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, including Question Time, The Weakest Link, Casualty and Crimewatch.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/oct/16/glasgow-bbc-question-time-dimbleby">Continue reading...</a>GlasgowUK newsBBCMediaDavid DimblebyThu, 16 Oct 2008 12:30:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/oct/16/glasgow-bbc-question-time-dimblebyMurdo Macleod/GuardianGlasgow: city of culture. Photograph: Murdo MacleodOpen thread2008-10-16T12:30:00Z